The Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination ultimately dismissed the complaint by Jill Gagne, but now an independent counsel has taken testimony about it.
A dismissed sexual harassment complaint against state Rep. Thomas Petrolati, D-Ludlow, above, whose role in patronage and hiring practices at the Massachusetts Probation Department is part of a 300-page report impounded by the state Supreme Judicial Court, has surfaced again.BOSTON - A 14-year-old sexual harassment complaint that was dismissed is coming back to haunt state Rep. Thomas M. Petrolati as part of an investigation of patronage in the state’s Probation Department.
In 1996, Jill Gagne, then a program director at the Ludlow Boys & Girls Club, filed a complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination. In it, she claimed she was fired after she told supervisors she was sexually harassed by Petrolati and complained about his advances. Petrolati, a Ludlow Democrat, was then an honorary board member of the club.
The state commission ultimately dismissed the complaint against Petrolati, but now an independent counsel, appointed to investigate hiring practices in probation, has taken testimony about it. The special prosecutor’s report, filed this week in Boston, is now impounded with the state Supreme Judicial Court.
The testimony regarding the harassment complaint apparently turns on whether Petrolati may have used his influence at probation in an attempt to pressure a key witness in the case, the Boston Globe reported in a recent lengthy article on Petrolati’s longtime grip on patronage at probation.
The witness, James G. Moriarty, chief executive officer of the boys club, confirmed this week he did testify in the closed-door proceedings about the Probation Department. Moriarty’s wife had been seeking a state probation job at about the same time Petrolati faced the sexual harassment claim.
In a telephone interview on Thursday, Gagne told The Republican that Petrolati would constantly call her over a period of about six weeks in 1996 and would send her flowers with notes. Petrolati, who is married, would attempt to persuade her to meet him in Boston, she said.
Gagne said the conversations were “sexual” in nature.
“It was definitely clear he wanted me to have sexual relations with him,” Gagne told The Republican. “That was always his pickup line, ‘Come to Boston. Come with me there.’ ”
Petrolati never touched her, she said. There was never any physical contact, she said.
In early 1997, the commission against discrimination dismissed the complaint, saying in a decision that it was unable to conclude that the information it obtained established a violation of the law.
The Globe has reported that on the same day in 1996 that Moriarty was questioned by commission staff, his wife received an unexpected call inviting her to interview for a probation opening in Westfield District Court. Months earlier, a Petrolati assistant had told Moriarty that his wife was no longer being considered for the probation job, the Globe reported.
James MoriartyMoriarty told investigators that he believes that Petrolati was behind the sudden reversal back in 1996, and he viewed it as an attempt to influence his testimony, the Globe reported.
“It was too much of a damn coincidence,” Moriarty told independent counsel Paul F. Ware, a source familiar with his testimony told the Globe.
In this week’s interview, Moriarty said he and his wife were subpoenaed to testify in front of Ware. He would not, however, comment on the testimony.
Moriarty said his wife was not hired in 1996 and never worked at probation. The Globe reported that the wife was interviewed for a probation post.
“We did testify,” Moriarty said. “It’s part of the official investigation.”
Petrolati has refused repeated requests for an interview. An aide referred questions to Jack St. Clair, a Springfield lawyer who represented Petrolati regarding the complaint to the state anti-discrimination commission.
St. Clair said on Friday that Gagne, in 1996, was deposed under oath and extensive evidence in the case was presented to a state hearing officer. The hearing concluded there was no probable cause to send the case to trial, according to the lawyer, and the bottom line, St. Clair said, was that Gagne’s assertions were not credible.
“Every opportunity was made for the girl at the time to make her case, and she didn’t make her case,” St. Clair said. “What she is saying now is not to be believed. It wasn’t to be believed 14 years ago when people were dealing with it intensely.”
Gagne said she was devastated when she was fired from her job at the Ludlow club. She said Petrolati’s advances were terrifying because he always seemed to be around her or calling her over those six weeks.
“He was just creepy,” said Gagne, which is her maiden name. “It was enough to scare me.”
Gagne, a 1987 graduate of Agawam High School, was 26 at the time, while Petrolati was 39.
According to a copy of the decision by the anti-discrimination commission, the commission found that Gagne lost her job because of “inappropriate actions and comments” to Moriarty, not because of her clash with Petrolati.
In a conversation with Moriarty, Gagne openly displayed physical hostility toward a 7-year-old child, the decision said.
The club took “corrective action” in response to Gagne’s complaints about being harassed, the decision said.
At the time, Petrolati denied doing anything inappropriate, but Moriarty, in his testimony to special investigator Ware, contradicted Petrolati, according to the Globe, which cited a source with direct knowledge of the testimony.
According to the Globe’s source, Moriarty testified Petrolati was so concerned about avoiding bad publicity, that his aide urged Moriarty to help him lobby a newspaper against writing a story on Gagne’s complaint. When Moriarty declined, the aide told Moriarty that his wife would no longer be considered for a probation job, the Globe reported, again citing a source.
Moriarty told Ware that he believed Gagne’s harassment claim, the Globe reported.
Petrolati, the No. 3 power in the state House of Representatives, was re-elected on Nov. 2 without opposition. He has been challenged only once since being elected in 1986.
Ware, the independent investigator appointed by state Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall and Judge Robert A. Mulligan, chief justice for administration and management for the state Trial Court, submitted a report on Wednesday. The court has impounded the report, and it’s unclear when it will be released.
The Probation Department has hired: Petrolati’s wife, Kathleen, for a $93,000-a-year program manager’s position; Robert P. Ryan, the husband of Petrolati’s chief of staff, Colleen Ryan, as $93,000 chief probation officer; Andre Pereira, a former legislative aide as a $74,350-a-year assistant chief probation officer; and political contributors to his campaign. Two of Pereira’s nieces were also hired at probation, the Globe reported.
Marshall and Mulligan placed probation commissioner John J. O’Brien, a strong ally of Petrolati, on administrative leave in May, pending the results of the now-impounded report by Ware.
Petrolati, who has one of the largest campaign balances in the state Legislature, has long collected campaign contributions from probation employees, including the great majority during an annual fund-raiser in Ludlow.
O’Brien was appointed probation commissioner in 1998 but had previously served as coordinator of “intergovernmental relations” for the administrative office of the Trial Court.